Welsh Journals

been instrumental in ensuring the survival of a crucial collection of documents which might otherwise have been dispersed or destroyed. George Grant Francis died in London on 21st April 1882 and was buried in the Richardson family mausoleum in Danygraig Cemetery.15 Between the years 1885 and 1895 his son, John Richardson Francis, presented the Royal Institution with his father's collections. John donated on a regular basis, but it was in 1895 that he donated the majority of his father's papers. This was a large and important donation of more than two hundred books (including his own No. 1 copy of his publication on the charters of Swansea) and a wealth of pamphlets, manuscripts, engravings, maps, plans and casts of ancient seals relating to Wales in general and south west Wales in particular. Many of the printed works are interleaved and enriched with copious manuscript notes in Francis's distinctive handwriting which add greatly to their value. Also presented were notes and letters written and received by Francis. These and several previous gifts from George Grant Francis during his lifetime put the Royal Institution in possession of a collection which was unique in its area. For the first time a wide-ranging collection of archives had been brought together and made available, albeit to members of the society rather than the public at large, but available nonetheless, in a building constructed for the furtherance of learning. The council of the Royal Institution was so impressed by the munificence of John Francis that it voted unanimously to recommend him to the annual meeting for election as honorary member of the Institution. The annual report for 1895-6 sums up the dona- tion thus: 'Col. Francis laboured for many years as a collector and compiler, and the Institution has by the munificence of his son entered into the fruits of his labour'.16 The full extent of the donation went on to fill a total of twenty-five pages of the annual report. Since that time the Royal Institution archives have been added to in many ways. There have been smaller deposits from other collectors who came across records of interest. For example, there are court rolls of Bishopston Manor, papers deposited by Glen Taylor,17 and the research notes of the historians W. H. Jones and Col. W. Ll. Morgan. Many of the collections which have been catalogued as discreet units bear the distinctive stamp of John Richardson Francis of Llwynderw, showing that they were collected by George Grant Francis and donated by his son. Generally speaking when cataloguing archives, there is no sense of being part of a continuum, we are usually in the business of recording fresh accessions which have never been in a record office before. We follow our procedures, catalogue them and shelve them, confident in our belief that our way is best. However, with the Royal Institution records, we are constantly reminded that as cataloguers we are just the latest in a line of antiquarians, librarians and archivists who have dealt with them over the years. Many documents have passed though the hands of George Grant Francis, his son John, the curators of Swansea Museum and the staff of the Swansea University Archives before coming to the Archive Service. Modern trends are towards widening access and using the internet to advertise the contents of archives to a mass audience. Despite this, the same concern has remained paramount through- out, namely to preserve the heritage of our area for future generations.